Wednesday, July 20, 2005

A challenging question, to be sure. At the fine site monergism.com, John Hendryx gives an overview of the modern American pulpit and Christian book publishing ... well worth a read ... Are Our Churches Preaching the Gospel?

A sampling ...

Well, what was preached to us that Sunday I concluded, was really just ended up being a spiritual pep-talk. While there may have been very encouraging content, but was it the gospel? Is the pulpit meant to rally the troops or be a place to preach Christ crucified? The message to us, if you think about it, really was, “We all just need to be more like Zonzendorf and then Christians would have a greater impact on society.” But if you think about this closely, when we just give examples about how to live, we are setting people up for a fall because it is the preaching of the law without gospel. There was no redemptive element to the sermon. It was just a message about how we should behave. While I admit that it was of great interest, the fact is that many who heard it will simply go out of church and on Monday be deflated after hearing the inspirational story. Unfortunately this is what the vast majority of evangelical preachers are teaching.

... and ...

What seems to matters to many publishers these days is the new and the best-sellers, whether or not they are Christ-centered or truly edifying. You can see this when you walk into most of the bookstores that look like Christian boutiques half filled with junk. Many of our churches are trending in the same direction. The pastor wants to find out what the congregation wants and then preach on that rather than be Christ-driven from a sound exegesis of the word. When our ears are tickled the numbers may grow, but how meaningful is that? But a recent Business Week magazine article on the church growth movement and how it had become a business had a revealing comment. It said that overall the church in the United States is not growing at all. It is flat. But what of all the mega-churches that appear to be growing, we ask? The reality is that the mega-churches are not unlike when Walmart or Home Depot moves into a small town. The mom and pop shops close down to make room for the big boys.

... more ...

Both our pulpits and the publishing industry are trending in a similar direction: to give the people what they want, rather than give us the law, which breaks us, and the gospel which redeems us. Pray that the Lord grant his people the ability to destroy all speculations that set themselves up against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive and make them obedient to Christ.